Originally Posted by
ADLFO
I shared similar frustrations with Jeff and Josh at the Q&A. My experience is that DL Customer Care often times submits a form "cut and paste" email that is, in many cases, less than responsive to your inquiry. NW TTU generally provides a succinct and timely response that always leaves me believing that the concern was understood and addressed. I heard others around me at the DO concur about their frustrations with dismissive responses from DL Customer Care.
From my recollection of Jeff's response, he acknowledged that NW generally treats their elites very well and that DL will be headed further in that direction in the future. I take him at his word that changes are and will be made at DL to rectify these types of issues. However, I also realize that DL is a large company and direction changes can happen, but generally happen very slowly. I would think it would be somewhat analagous to a large ocean liner. Sure, the direction of the ship can and should sometimes change, but it can't and won't turn on a dime.
Well, that's promising. I just hope DL isn't making these changes in the vacuum of upper management and completely out of touch from the customers. The DO is a good start. I hope that he has more. In fact, I think he should devise a customer advisory board which could conviene online, and perhaps periodic meetings in person somwehere.
When management isn't arms length away from the customer, the company is doomed to make mistakes.
I know this because I was part of a transition team as our company bought another large peer in our industry, doubling the size of our company. They were good at having layers of management, politics and getting nothing done. Our company, luckily the one doing the buying, was lean at the top and we get things done. Luckily, we were in the driver's seat. My department, IT had did more work with 5 people than their 40. Needless to say, many of their people read the writing on the wall and left for other opportunities. This was a great way to find out ahead of time who the workers were. Those who stayed either had to perform or get out. We had a very aggressive conversion IT systems conversion schedule and exceeded our benchmarks and timelines. Had their IT department been in the drivers seat, we'd still be talking about systems conversion
Unfortunately, other parts of the old company still exist, they're slowly and surely improving. Thankfully my department by need to get the conversion schedule done rapidly was one of the first ones to go through the transition. And, those at the bottom of that department, the IT people in each city, all quickly adapted to our lean, quick acting, results oriented way of doing business.
But, culture is hard to change. And it doesn't help that the culture that's doing the buying and in the drivers' seat is the one that needs the improvement. It starts at the top, and the upper level management needs to set the priorities and do the right thing. Here's an observation: When Mr. Anderson was the head of NW, things were great, they were just as awesome as the day before the DL merger. Yet, from a customer's point of view, what has Mr. Anderson done to re-create that culture at Delta? I've never met the guy and never worked with him, but that sounds very hands off -- which in this case might be a bad idea.
With all the problems, I'm questioning alot of those decisions at DL related to the merger. I didn't attend the DO, but, the notes on this thread sound alot more like excuses to me, and the things the other half of my company would say to delay projects and do things substandard and poor.
Taking things away from your customers (both internal and external) is a huge mistake and I'm getting a little tired of the excuses and looking for results.